Get £25 cashback when taking out First Direct credit card
Holders of 1st Account can get extra £25 by taking out a credit card.
Cash incentives for switching current accounts have become the norm, but First Direct is throwing down the gauntlet to other banks by offering customers £25 to take its credit card.
Customers have a choice between a credit card which offers 0% interest on balance transfers for 27 months and one which offers 0% interest on purchases for 17 months.
Existing customers only
The deal’s only available to First Direct customers with a 1st Account. However, with the £25 credit card cashback deal open until 10th May, there’s time to switch your current account to First Direct.
But should you switch? On the plus side, besides the bonus cash, it's worth remembering that people who make the switch to First Direct are rarely disappointed – the bank regularly tops customer service polls.
What's more customers of other banks who switch to the 1st Account also get a £100 switching incentive. So you could actually pocket £125 by taking out both accounts.
First Direct is a big fan of offering eye-catching deals to its current customer base. For example, 1st Account customers can open a regular saver account paying 6% for customers who save £25 to £300 a month in the account.
It also offers a pretty decent loan rate of 3.6% APR on loans between £7,000 and £25,000. Again, you need to be a 1st Account customer to qualify.
How to get the cash
To be eligible for First Direct’s £25 offer, you must have a 1st Account and apply for your credit card before 10th May 2015.
You can’t currently hold a First Direct credit card or have had one within the past six months.
The card must be opened and a purchase or balance transfer made within three months of the account opening. The purchase can be of any value but the balance transfer must be £100 or more.
The cash is then paid within 45 days of criteria being met.
Are First Direct's cards any good?
There are two credit cards which you can bag the £25 cashback from. But are the any good?
If you’ve got an existing credit card balance to transfer, you can switch this to First Direct’s 0% balance transfer card and get 27 months interest-free. You'll have to pay a fee of 2.29% of any sum you transfer though.
It's not the best though. You can get a whopping 36 months of 0% interest on balances transferred to the Barclaycard Platinum Visa, with a slightly higher fee of 2.99%. Or if you don't need that long, you can get 28 months of 0% interest from the Platinum Balance Transfer cards from Bank of Scotland, Halifax or Lloyds with a fee of 1.50%. That's one extra month of interest-free borrowing, with a lower fee to boot!
For more, read The best 0% balance transfer credit cards.
If you need a credit card to spend on, First Direct’s Gold Card offers interest-free purchases for 17 months. After that it has an APR of 16.9%.
It’s certainly not the longest 0% deal for purchases. Santander’s 123 credit card offers 23 months interest-free, and also pays up to 3% cashback, though it does come with a £24 annual fee. Clydesdale and Yorkshire Banks both offer 20 months interest-free on purchases, as does Halifax. For more read The best 0% purchase credit cards.
More on credit cards:
The best 0% balance transfer credit cards
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